Welcome to the Next Chapter | Bringing Cinema Closer since 2013

A new year, a new era, and a new look for the blog - it's been a long time coming but welcome to our new lick of paint, which in essence, is more than just a simple lick of paint and a rebrand. CineWyre is just a month away, the Lancashire Film Network we're so bloody proud to be involved in is up and running, our friends at The Arc will soon celebrate their 1 year anniversary of being open here in Preston, and we've got so many incredible plans for 2026 and beyond across all of our content - so what better time to take the wraps off our re-energised meeting point for all things film?

TheJackSmit.com. Bringing Cinema Closer Since 2013

All of the content you love has made the move over - all the First Takes, all the Journals, all the Projection Rooms, and so much more still to come. Behind the scenes a lot has changed too, not only are we sporting a new look, but a new backend too, one which makes it even easier for us to push content out to you guys (with a search button that WORKS), one which is more suited to the media landscape of 2026, and crucially, another evolution of what we've done for the last 13 years.

More Than Just a New Look

Built from the ground up to look good wherever you're reading, the new look TheJackSmit.com is the next step on the evolution of what we're doing to Bring Cinema Closer, which naturally brings us to the next huge thing: at some point this year you will begin to (hopefully) see ads between posts. Most of the back end of 2025 was spent doing Boring Legal Stuff to prepare for today, because there's many things to get sorted before AdSense can roll out. With the new look blog, the return of Front Row, Rough Cut, Journal, and so much more, whichever way you enjoy our content, we've got you covered across blog, podcast, YouTube and social media.

But what lies ahead is probably going to be one of the most special years for cinema fans all over the world: from top to bottom there's so much positivity around the industry despite all the challenges of the situation with Warner, the admissions situation, and the well-documented struggles some chains are facing - 2026 is going to truly light a creative fire, with a new Christopher Nolan film to look forward to in July with The Odyssey, the heavy hitters of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Toy Story 5, alongside the "as it stands" one-two of Dune: Prophecy and Avengers Doomsday to close the year, to of course, our grassroots festival coverage like LYIFF, CineWyre, Bolton, Aesthetica and more (one of which WILL be announced very shortly here on TheJackSmit.com), alongside the usual First Takes, the return of the Journal, and our monthly look ahead with Front Row.

The Next Chapter begins right here.